Ogre Miniatures

Base coating the plastic Ogre miniatures

2025-09-26T22:54:00.004-04:00

After priming all of the Ogre miniature plastics, it’s time to start base coating them. I’m taking the quick and dirty route, with Krylon Fusion spray paint.

That’s about 5000 vehicles, plus another 450 or so Ogres. I will start detail painting these in batches. I’ve decided I’m just going to follow the paint scheme I have always used for the metal miniatures.

I’ve been a bad blogger…

2025-07-01T19:14:00.002-04:00

It’s been a long time since I posted anything on here.

Life, home, job, kids, grandkids…

Still. No excuses. I have about 80% of the plastic Ogre miniatures (Combine & PE) glued together, and have started priming everything.

Plastic Ogre Miniatures!!!

2020-04-25T21:02:00.003-04:00

Well, I decided to sort out and get started on my plastic Ogre miniatures. I had just been throwing everything in one large plastic storage tub.

First, the sorting:

Then, the clipping of miniatures from their sprues:

Then the gluing... so much gluing...

In plastic, I have the following:

77 Ogre Mk III
52 Ogre Mk IV
75 Ogre Mk V
48 Fencers

384 Heavy Tanks
504 Light Tanks

216 Missile Tanks

144 Howitzers
175 Mobile Howitzers

252 Super Heavy Tanks

288 GEVs
516 Light GEVs
246 GEV-PCs

36 Command Posts
2268 Infantry

It's going to take me 50 years to paint all these, and the plastic Combine units are supposed to be coming to Kickstarter soon...

Game Table Expansion

2020-04-25T20:10:00.001-04:00

I've had this table that I use for Ogre miniatures gaming for many years. I picked it up at a surplus sale from my employer, where it had been used as a conference table in the boardroom for many years. I think I paid $25 for it.

It's mahogany, and extremely heavy. At one point I refinished the top, but it has suffered a lot of abuse over the years. The table is 42" wide and 96" long.

The other day I decided to figure out how to add an extended table top to it, for a larger playing area, without damaging the table top any further. Here is what I came up with.

I purchased two 4' x 8' sheets of 3/4" MDF and cut them down to 4' x 6'. From the cutoff pieces I made four locator strips and attached them to the undersides.

After attaching the locator pieces I flipped them over onto the conference table.

Now instead of 28 square feet of playing surface I have almost 50 square feet. The table is now 6' by 8'. Lots of room for Ogre miniatures games!

The nice part is they are removable and can store in my garage if I need more room. There's at least 30" of walk space all the way around the table though.

Here it is with some Hexon II tiles laid out on it.

And now with some Hexon II terrain features added.

Ogre Miniatures Army Pictures

2020-04-12T15:53:00.003-04:00

Decided to get my Ogre miniatures organized and inventoried, since I am working from home, there's plenty of time to work on that project.

First, I finished painting all of my metal Ogre miniatures, that took a couple of days. Then on to the inventory.

Cleared off the gaming table and laid out some Hexon II tiles so it looks nicer.

Here are all of the metal Pan-European miniatures on the table at once.

And some individual groupings.

And the metal Combine miniatures:

Well just found another box of metal miniatures that need assembled, primed, and painted. Once those are done, I can get started on the plastics...

New workshop and game room

2020-03-28T23:01:00.000-04:00

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, between selling a house, buying a house, moving, the corona virus...

Anyway, finally got moved into the new house and had time to get the workshop and game room set up the way I want them. First, the workshop:

It’s not huge, but it’s big enough. I painted the grey concrete floor white to reflect light better. The difference is amazing. Now I just need to get some miniatures painted.

Next, the game room. Still a work in progress:

I’ll take some more pictures once it is organized a bit more.

New ride!

2019-07-08T18:17:00.001-04:00

Ok, so this is not entirely Ogre related, but I still think it’s pretty cool...

I decided to get personalized plates for it...

More 3D printed buildings

2019-04-23T08:42:00.001-04:00

A few more pictures of recently printed objects...

This is what happens when you forget to scale your crater...

A trio of cooling towers (ran out of gray filament part way through...)

4 medium sized buildings printed at once

And these four are done!

More realistically sized craters.

Size comparison

3D Printed Nuclear Cooling Towers

2019-04-11T08:01:00.002-04:00

I printed a couple of larger buildings for Ogre Miniatures use. These are cooling towers like you see near nuclear power plants. About 5.5 hours to print one of these. It uses 55 grams of filament, about $0.77.

More 3D Printer Tests and Figuring Things Out...

2019-04-10T07:52:00.001-04:00

OK, I've been printing a bunch of stuff out on the new 3D printer, getting the bugs out. I realized instead of printing multi-part items one section at a time, I could put multiple objects into Cura, orient them so there is no overlap, and print them all at once. Elapsed time to print these 4 parts: 4 hours.

Finally bought a 3D Printer!

2019-04-08T14:07:00.000-04:00

Well, after watching the prices drop through the floor, I took the plunge and purchased a 3D printer. I chose the Creality Ender 3, which had amazing reviews and seemed pretty bulletproof. Assembly was pretty simple, and the test print came out great after a few minor adjustments.

Stock photo of Ender-3

I also sponsored a recent Kickstarter for some Sci-Fi building files, that should be perfect for Ogre miniatures play.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1555279928/3d-printable-sci-fi-buildings-for-tabletop-wargame/posts/2471835

These are sized for 15mm gaming, but I can scale them to 40% and print them for Ogre Miniatures. I'm looking forward to printing a whole city of these...

First attempt at a building (this is #1 of 4 parts):

Ogre Miniatures Set #2

2018-08-04T22:34:00.004-04:00

I received my first shipment of Ogre Miniatures Set #2 (Too Many Minis Level):

So that's roughly 1000 plastic miniatures to go along with the approximately 2000 from OM Set #1.

Adding those to my existing metal miniatures gives me roughly 10,000 Ogre miniatures of various ages and types. Guess I'd better get busy painting the new ones...

Contents of 1 box:

Lots of plastic, and some metal

2018-03-30T10:52:00.000-04:00

I sorted through my batches of Kickstarter plastic Ogre miniatures yesterday, just to get an idea of what I have and how many years it will take me to paint all of it. I ordered a batch of the black plastic Ogres (III & V) from Warehouse 23 as well, and I also picked up some of the last few metal miniatures they had in stock.

I still have a few hundred metal miniatures left to paint as well. At my current rate of painting, I should be done in 2045. Might have to speed things up a bit.

What's in the box?

2017-11-11T17:26:00.001-05:00

I opened up a box of the plastic Ogre miniatures to see what is included:

Lots of plastic bags!

2 red Ogre sprues (Mk III and Mk V)

7 Blue unit sprues

A copy of Ogre Miniatures Lite, an assembly guide, Record cards for the Ogres, and a glow in the dark D6.

Plastic Ogre minis have shipped!

2017-11-10T13:02:00.000-05:00

I got an email this morning that my Ogre miniatures from the Kickstarter had shipped. Sure enough, the FedEx driver just dropped them off at my house...

Ogre Miniatures Game at GenCon 2017

2017-09-11T12:41:00.001-04:00

My son and I made it to GenCon this year, we had fun, but wow there were a lot of people...

We ran a few Ogre miniatures games on our new Hexon terrain boards:

Ogre Miniatures Set #1 Kickstarter Successful!!!

2016-12-01T09:50:00.004-05:00

The Kickstarter for Ogre Miniatures Set #1 closed yesterday, fully funded (and then some!).

Final total was $124,628. The goal was $15,000, so I would say there was some interest in seeing these get done.

Kickstarter for Ogre Miniatures!

2016-11-30T13:38:00.001-05:00

Steve Jackson Games has created a Kickstarter for Ogre Miniatures in plastic. It's almost over, and I have been remiss in not posting about it sooner.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/847271320/ogre-miniatures-set-1

They are already talking about set two, so here's hoping that happens. It would be so nice to be able to walk into a FLGS and actually buy Ogre miniatures again. Apparently the new Ogre 6e (smaller box) will be in stores soon as well.

Japanese Ogre

2015-06-03T08:49:00.000-04:00

It's been a while since I posted on here, however, I picked up an interesting item on eBay the other day and wanted to share:

This is of course, the Ogre microgame, translated to Japanese. What I found interesting is that some of the manual illustrations do not appear to have been used anywhere else in the Ogre product line. Since I can't read Japanese, I can't tell who the artist is on these.

An interesting take on the Paneuropean heavy tank:

A slightly different Mark V Ogre:

A very different Paneuropean missile tank:

The PE GEV:

Definitely a howitzer, but which side?

A very different looking Mark III:

I'd love to find out more about these.

On an unrelated note, Origins 2015 time has arrived, and I am loading up all my Ogre miniatures stuff to play on Saturday, if I can get a table in the open gaming area...

Ogre Miniature Painting Tips

2014-05-01T20:21:00.000-04:00

I'm going to share a few tips and techniques I've picked up over the years. Tools, painting techniques, you name it.

Antennas for 6mm scale vehicles

I use black nylon paint brush bristles for antennas. They are cheap, plentiful, and you don't puncture your finger every time you pick up a mini, like you do with wire antennas. I recall thinking "I'm going to need a tetanus shot" after stabbing my finger on some Battletech mech wire antennas I did years ago...

I bought a cheap nylon bristle paint brush and cut the bristles off with scissors. I have been using those bristles for the last 25 years or so, and have yet to run out.

I usually leave the bristle long, and use a drop of superglue to attach it to the mini, sometimes I use a drop of accelerator so I don't have to hold it in place for too long. After the glue has dried for an hour or so, you can trim the antenna to length with scissors or flush cutters.

See my pictures in the GEV painting tutorial below.

Painting and Detailing Paneuropean GEV's

I got busy and painted a huge batch of GEV's recently, I was tired of the monochromatic red paint scheme. Basically there are 8 steps to doing this:

1) Priming - I usually prime my miniatures with Krylon Ultra Flat black. It sticks like crazy and dries fast. Of course, if I'm painting the vehicle light colors, then the black primer sucks. Luckily not many of my Ogre vehicles are light in color.

2) Base Coat - I sprayed the Paneuropean vehicles with Krylon Banner Red (satin) from a rattle can. Like I've said elsewhere, I believe in quick and dirty paint jobs for these. Krylon was nice enough to discontinue Banner Red (satin) from their line a few years ago, so I switched to their Banner Red (gloss). I figured I could just spray everything with Dullcote and they would all look the same. Nope. The gloss Banner Red is a little darker than the satin, so now I have a two-toned army. Oh well.

3) Skirt - I paint the skirt flat black all the way around the GEV with a craft store brand acrylic.

4) Windshield - The windshield is really two steps. I mix up a 50% wash of light blue paint and put a drop in each window. Capillary action usually does the rest, filling in the whole window. If not, a #0 brush can be used to work it into the edges. After that wash dries fully, I mix up another 50% wash, this time with dark (Navy) blue. I repeat the process of putting a drop in each window. The nice part about this technique is that it usually leaves a lighter colored "frame" around the window edges.

5) Lift Fan - I put a drop of 50% metallic silver wash in here, to highlight the blades. I also put a dot of black in each engine inlet and exhaust.

6) Guns - I pick out the 5 gun barrels with metallic gold.

7) Antenna - Just superglue the bristle into the antenna socket, let dry, and cut to size. You can also curl them with something to give them that swept-back look.

8) Flat Coat - I dust a couple of light coats of Dullcote over the whole miniature, for protection and to remove any glossiness.

Steps 2-6 from above:

Just cut some brush bristles to size

A close-up shot of a new batch

A flotilla of GEVs fresh off the assembly line!

How I Became an Ogre Fan

2014-04-30T21:15:00.000-04:00

Ogre is one of the first wargames I ever played, I remember buying it in a little hobby store in Owosso, Michigan, on a trip to my grandparents house in the summer of 1977. I picked up WarpWar that summer too, but it never held my attention like Ogre did.

I had read a lot of science fiction up to that point, including Keith Laumer's Bolo! The idea of self-aware cybernetic tanks that were willing to sacrifice themselves for humans touched me deeply. I was 13 years old.

Later that summer, I would go see a movie that my father thought I might like, it had a strange title though... "Star Wars".

I played Ogre with my gaming friends at school, we pretty much wore out my counters and map. We drew new maps, created new vehicles, larger and larger Ogres, you name it.

In 1980 I was with some gamer friends in Columbus Ohio, visiting game stores. We stopped at a discount store that sometimes carried closeout merchandise from game stores. While rooting around on the shelves I found some packages of lead Ogre miniatures from a company named Martian Metals. I still have some of those figures in my collection.

Over the years I kept buying Ogre miniatures, trying to build up my collection. The line would keep getting discontinued and restarted. It was frustrating. After a few years of nothing being available I would sell off parts of my collection. Eventually Steve Jackson Games returned to producing Ogre miniatures around 2000/2001, and I started buying again.

I spent a lot of time and money buying used miniatures on the secondary market to build up my forces.

The line went back out of print for a time, then finally came back as part of the Ogre 6e Kickstarter. Hopefully a way will be found to keep the line in print for a while.

Currently my collection is over 1500 vehicles, I have not counted them for some time though. Almost all of them are painted now. I'm a firm believer in not spending hours detailing a 1/300 scale tank. My philosophy on painting the vehicles was why spend hours painting something that lasts seconds on the board?

Ogre 6e Storage Case Project

2013-12-29T16:05:00.000-05:00

I picked up two copies of the Ogre 6e Kickstarter Edition, one to play with, one to hang on to for future purposes. I saw a thread on the SJG Ogre Forums about storage and transport a while back, and had been thinking about how to store and transport my copies in safety.

I was cleaning out the basement storage area the other day and came upon a couple of instrument cases ($5 each) that I had picked up at a thrift store many years ago. I had always thought I might use them to store my Ogre miniatures in, but had never gotten around to working out a way to make that happen.

These cases are pretty big. I measured them at 25" x 21" x 8" deep.

Hmmmm.... how big is that Ogre 6e box again?

The 6e box is 24" x 20" x 6". Wow! What are the odds of that happening?

Just add a little foam rubber to cushion the bottom and sides.

Now I can store and transport them safely!

The 4 Howitzer Defense in Ogre

2013-12-04T22:41:00.001-05:00

I've been looking at the Ogre 4 howitzer defense strategy lately, and decided to create a graphic to help my son understand the overlapping fields of fire. He got confused by the color coding of the hexes, so here's my interpretation:

The command post can be located pretty much anywhere in the northeast corner and it won't make much difference.

Old Miniatures From My Past

2013-09-21T18:31:00.000-04:00

Over on the SJ Games Forums, a recent post caught my eye...

Ab Mobasher Post

Interestingly enough, I have several of these miniatures in my possession, which I purchased back in the early 1980's.

Group shot

Turret removed

Interior fully revealed

More trees! More trees!

2013-08-12T20:55:00.000-04:00

I decided the boards were still too bare, so I ordered another 200 trees in a lighter color, which I hope makes the boards look a bit better. I think I like it. They are more yellow, but the two colors seem to blend together.

I know I am amazed they can make these trees so cheaply. I also added some dead trees using a super secret process which I shall reveal at a later time.

Here are some new pictures: